


dirèk ak rasyonèl

by flybbfly



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4999228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She catches a glimpse at what he's doing: his phone screen shows code, but Eponine can't get a close enough look at it to know exactly what. ABC work, she assumes, and lights her cigarette.</p>
<p>She half-expects Combeferre to say something about it—med school made Joly annoying about her smoking—but he doesn't. Instead, he puts his phone in his front pocket and looks at her."</p>
<p>Eponine is tired of playing games. Combeferre wouldn't even know where to start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dirèk ak rasyonèl

Eponine's break comes between two late-night rushes. She's reluctant to take it because of tips missed (key terms run through her mind: opportunity cost; behavioral economics), but the familiar ache in the back of her throat—for a cigarette—and the sweat she feels trickling down the back of her neck convince her to go out.

Musichetta poking her incessantly in the side and Grantaire's raised eyebrow, Eponine tells herself, have nothing to do with it.

It's just starting to get chilly outside, but Eponine goes out without her jacket, relishing the sharp mid-fall wind on her sweat-soaked skin. 

It surprises her a bit to see Combeferre, who doesn't smoke, perched on the curb several feet away from the Musain's entrance.

“Hey,” he says, waving her over when he sees her. His wallet pokes out of his left back pocket, bulky. Probably a lot of bills, though not likely high denomination ones based on his shoes. She can see the cards sticking out—a MetroCard, something blue like a Chase debit card, half a dozen others, one must be a driver's license and another she's sure is his favorite deli's stamp card—but Eponine forces herself to stop. “Crazy shift?”

“A little,” she says, fishing her cigarettes out of her back pocket and sitting down. 

She catches a glimpse at what he's doing: his phone screen shows code, but Eponine can't get a close enough look at it to know exactly what. ABC work, she assumes, and lights her cigarette.

She half-expects Combeferre to say something about it—med school made Joly annoying about her smoking—but he doesn't. Instead, he puts his phone in his front pocket and looks at her. 

Combeferre has a severe face, an intimidating jaw, clear-framed acrylic glasses, a carefully-shaved fade. But it betrays surprising warmth when he smiles. He has a dimple and a single freckle above his lip, barely darker than his skin. It turns his face friendly instead of intense. Intensely friendly, maybe. She wonders how a face can go from harsh to soft so quickly.

“I heard you got your citizenship,” Combeferre says. 

“Marius updated you?”

Combeferre nods. “Congratulations. You can finally vote.”

He says it with neither irony nor excitement. He says it like unambiguous fact. There's none of Enjolras's half-choked down smile, his insistence on spouting information about his preferred candidates—“Though of course you should research everyone—that's the _point_ , don't you see, of representative democracy—the research is _vital_ ”—but none, either, of Grantaire's eyerolls, no mention of how little votes matter, no word on how, “in New York City any vote might as well be a blue vote anyway, unless you're voting for mayor and then maybe they're the _other_ kind of blue, so what's the point? But good job, congrats, it's easier to travel now.”

It's straightforward. She likes that about Combeferre. He lets people think for themselves. She's heard people call him cold for it, over-analytical—but it works for him, she thinks. He presents the facts as they are and lets you draw your own conclusions.

“I can finally vote,” Eponine says, exhaling. She blows smoke rings because she can, and Combeferre watches as they expand and dissipate. 

“How do you do that?” 

“What?” she says.

“The rings. I've always wondered.”

“If you always wondered, why didn't you look it up?”

The dimple again. 

“I did,” he says. “I just wanted to hear you explain it.”

Eponine feels her own lips twitch. “Is that a joke about my accent?”

“Of course it isn't,” Combeferre says, like it's obvious. 

They've never been close, she and Combeferre, but Eponine has always felt a certain camaraderie with him anyway. Maybe it's that he, too, is surrounded by wild personalities but seems largely unaffected by it. Maybe it's just that he speaks French—that's certainly why she was first drawn to Marius, Marius who pulled French and Haitian Creole out like he was speaking his native English and made her feel at home fifteen hundred miles away.

She pushes all thought of Marius out of her head and looks at Combeferre, whose smile becomes nervous—a little twitchy, a little more shallow, one corner of his lower lip pulled between his teeth.

Maybe it's just that Combeferre is straightforward. She likes it when people say what they mean, when they don't play a thousand tricks and make you solve a million puzzles to eek out some semblance of their meaning. Combeferre has proved that he can be poetic, that he is eloquent when pressed, but never have either of these qualities made him into a trickster, a liar, a smiling mask. He is neither confused about what he feels, nor laughably blind about others' emotions. It's refreshing, his brand of straightforward perceptiveness. It feels disingenuous to even call it a brand: it's more natural than that, intrinsic rather than adopted, at least as far as Eponine can tell.

“I'd meant to ask you,” he says. “I know you're busy with work and school and stuff—but there's this movie festival in Bushwick this weekend. Kind of a Tribeca-of-color thing. Want to go?”

“With you?” 

“Yeah,” Combeferre says. “Just to clarify—I mean do you want to come with me on a date to this movie festival.”

Eponine considers this information, and then she considers what it does to her: the odd fluttering in her navel; the lump in her throat; the heat in her cheeks.

“You like me,” she says.

“Yes,” Combeferre says. “And based on the way you actually reply to me instead of just rolling your eyes when we speak, smile much more at me on average than at most other people, and have even once or twice offered me one of your very expensive cigarettes—I'd say you like me too.”

“You would,” Eponine says, feeling her lips twitch again. “Do you think I'm going to say yes?”

Combeferre lifts two fingers to the underside of Eponine's chin, tilting her face up as if searching for something. Then he smiles, too.

“Yes,” he says. “I think we like each other and we should try dating.”

“The last time we spoke about this, you said I still wasn't over someone else.”

“And now you are,” Combeferre says, like he's sure of it. A moment later he ducks his head, a little embarrassed. “I asked Courfeyrac what he thought.” A confession.

Eponine pictures Marius, tries to summon the aching heat she used to feel whenever she thought of him, and fails. 

Combeferre drops her chin.

“So?” he says.

Eponine leans toward him, brings a hand up to his face. The skin at his jaw is soft and warm as she brushes a thumb over it. The back of his neck is even hotter, the skin between his collar and his hair bringing warmth back into her cold hand. 

Combeferre meets her gaze and holds it for a moment. His eyes crinkle and his dimple appears again. Eponine looks down at his mouth, and when she looks back up sees the expression mirrored.

“Yes,” she says, and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> unedited quick one-shot because the bleakness of [philia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3766021/chapters/8365750) was getting to me, and i'm in the editing stages of my fics for the [les mis halloween exchange](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/LesMiserablesOct2015). (one day i will return to the [olad](http://archiveofourown.org/works/499704/chapters/876567) sequel i promised, but everything i've written for it so far is super sad)
> 
> wrote this over the course of ~2 hours while listening to the new lana del rey album on repeat. it's not great, is it? (the album i mean)
> 
> title is haitian creole for straightforward and rational.
> 
> please leave a comment if you read/enjoyed/think i completely mischaracterized both eponine and combeferre/hate my use of lowercase letters in this author's note/spot a typo!


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